Israel's friends and enemies never forget that it is a "one-bomb country." One nuclear weapon is all it would take to wipe out a nation whose territory is smaller than Djibouti, with a population not as large as that of Burundi — fewer than 8 million people, 20 percent of them Arabs who are enjoying rights denied to Arabs (not to mention non-Arab minorities) elsewhere in the Middle East.

Israel is surrounded by Muslim-majority states with 60 times its population and 650 times its territory. Most of those states refuse even to recognize Israel. Some go further. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, threatens genocide: "Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth."

Hamas' charter is not more moderate: "Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them)." Israel is a vital link in what the Charter calls "the chain of Jihad." Hamas cleric Yunis Al-Astal elaborated in a 2008 sermon:

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